


Embers

by grelleswife



Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: Other, Yearning, but he can't deny that he loves her, kiss beneath a streetlamp, the dumb demon made Grelle wait
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-14
Updated: 2019-09-14
Packaged: 2020-10-18 15:00:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20641091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grelleswife/pseuds/grelleswife
Summary: It is 1920, and Sebastian Michaelis has returned to London in search of Grelle.





	Embers

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for a Tumblr prompt requesting a Sebagrelle kiss after they've been yearning for it for far too long.
> 
> Heartworm (n.): a relationship or friendship that you can’t get out of your head, which you thought had faded long ago but is still somehow alive and unfinished, like an abandoned campsite whose smoldering embers still have the power to start a forest fire.  
—from the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

With great pain and travail, the demon who had once been Sebastian Michaelis manifested in the city of London. No soul had been offered to pay the price for his crossing, which compelled him to sacrifice the energy and knowledge he had gleaned from one of his past meals. For _her_, though, it was well worth it. Now the trick was to find the woman.

Sebastian had enough proficiency in scrying to determine that Grelle was in London, but not enough to ascertain exactly where. He was confident that he could locate her, however. That livid crimson soul was without parallel.

A living, many eyed shadow, he prowled the streets. He searched hither and yon, desperation mounting until, by fate (as she would have said) or coincidence (which he would maintain it to be) he found Grelle at last. Although it was the dead of night, she walked alone and unarmed. She carried herself confidently for all that, head held high, gait loose and free.

Eagerly, he appeared in front of her, adopting a guise similar to the one he’d had when first they met. The clothes were a bit different, though—a long black coat trimmed with feathers at the neck and cuff, high-heeled black boots, and several glittering rings for good measure. Since he was no longer bound by the strictures limiting a butler’s conduct, Sebastian wanted to do what he could to impress the red reaper.

“Good evening, Miss Sutcliff.”

She was even more beautiful than he remembered. The astonishing hair had grown longer, the streetlights setting it aflame. Bold, dark makeup accentuated those lustrous, bewitching eyes, and he drank in the sight of the sophisticated (yet delightfully revealing) red dress she wore. During the past several years in Hades, he had turned her image over and over in his mind, but the woman herself exceeded his wildest imaginings, as he had known she would.

She came to an abrupt halt, staring at him with joyous disbelief. “Bassy. It’s really you!”

Odd how that the nickname that used to gall him sounded so sweet to his ears. “It’s good to see your face, darling,” she said, voice husky with an emotion he couldn’t quite identify.

He came closer. “You’re not an unwelcome sight yourself.” Try as he might, he couldn’t take his eyes off her. He would have been content to look at Grelle until daylight’s glow washed the stars from the sky. Hesitantly, Sebastian offered her his arm. “Care to walk with me?”

Her jaw dropped. “Who are you and what have you done to the Sebastian Michaelis I knew?”

“I changed a little.” Never mind how. He himself was still grappling with that mystery. “Besides, it would be ungentlemanly of me to let a lady go off in the dark without an escort.”

She threw back her head and laughed. The sight of her exposed neck and collarbone lit something fierce and scorching within him. “Oh, honey, the humans have far more to fear of _me_ than I of them, and we both know that you’re no gentleman.” Her eyes sparkled. “But you’re still a handsome devil for all that, little Sebas.” She slipped her arm into the crook of his elbow.

“How long as it been?” he asked as they walked in tandem.

“It’s 1920 now.”

“Ah.”

The years flowed differently down below.

They chatted idly for the next few minutes, dancing around the larger questions that remained unspoken. Sebastian’s eyes kept drifting hungrily back to Grelle’s face. Though she was as lively and vivacious as she had been in the Victorian era, she seemed more composed and collected. The wild, angry energy that erupted from her soul like a solar flare had dimmed.

“You look less bloodthirsty than before, Miss Sutcliff. Has that ‘fiery passion’ of yours finally settled down?”

“I’m categorically incapable of settling down, Bassy, but I guess I’ve…gotten calmer. Maybe time has mellowed me out. And things are a little better at dispatch. These days, some of them actually treat me like a woman. The embers still remain, though. If the wind changed direction, they could flame once more.”

Her gaze pierced him. The demon turned his face away in discomfiture.

“I was also wondering if you’d settled down in other ways. Like with William, for instance.” Sebastian’s cheeks burned with mortification as the query slipped out unbidden.

Grelle chuckled. “Oh, no darling, I gave up on _him_ years ago. He’s never given a damn about me—I see that now. Besides, I’m not Penelope, plucking at my weaving wondering when my man will show up. I’m immortal, but I can’t wait forever. I deserve better than that.”

Her tone was sharp with accusation, and Sebastian cleared his throat uncomfortably.

“Naturally, Miss Sutcliff. I never said otherwise.” He couldn’t deny that relief that washed over him upon hearing that William T. Spears was no longer in the picture.

Grelle jerked him to a halt beneath a streetlamp, and her eyes flashed fire. “Then _why did you keep me waiting_?”

“Beg pardon?” he asked, a peculiar sensation twisting in his stomach.

“I thought we had something,” she continued, grabbing the front of his coat. “The last few times we met were _different_, somehow. Don’t you dare try to deny it, because you know it’s true.”

She was right. As time went on, Sebastian had found his annoyance being supplanted by fondness and admiration for the irrepressible, irresistible goddess. Increasingly, banter (or flirtation?) replaced the invective of their earlier exchanges. Sebastian had even chatted with her once or twice when she’d stopped by the manor to pester him. To his chagrin, he had realized Grelle wasn’t nearly as odious as he’d first presumed. In fact, he almost liked her, or more than liked her. He thought he’d successfully hidden these bizarre sentiments, but apparently not.

“And you choked out one of the shortest goodbyes in history, and just _left_! You didn’t even tell me whether I’d ever see you again! I’ve just been biding my time, not knowing whether I should be waiting in the first place, but not being able to move on because of a _slight_ chance that you might show up! How could you treat a lady like that?”

Sebastian felt shabby and small. He’d managed to find Grelle after his contract reached its conclusion to bid her farewell. Merely for the aesthetic. Tying up loose ends was the beautiful thing to do, no messy unresolved issues. But her hurt expression had disconcerted him, leaving the demon to stutter out a string of unpolished farewells before fleeing to hell, frantically hoping to evade the sentiment that engulfed him.

_I needed to see if I could forget you._

“I am a nullity, Miss Sutcliff. What of substance could I possibly have to offer you?”

She gritted her teeth in exasperation. “You have _yourself_, Bassy. I think I’ll be the judge of whether or not that’s enough for me.”

Sebastian stared at her, flabbergasted. _Does she actually want me?_ He’d assumed that she only regarded him as a diversion, though that knowledge hadn’t stymied his growing partiality for the reaper.

“Why did you come back?” she asked after a brief silence.

“On a whim.”

_Because I couldn’t forget._

He had resorted to sleep, one of the main forms of recreation for demons, yet every dream had somehow gone back, eventually, to Grelle. Unlike the myriad other souls he had encountered over the centuries, her memory did not fade. If anything, it was stamped indelibly upon his mind. He couldn’t have erased it if he tried.

“That’s shite, Bassy. Unless someone summoned you here, it’d be bloody difficult for you to appear in the mortal realm. It’s not something you’d do ‘just because.’ _Why did you come_?” she repeated her earlier inquiry, shaking him.

He’d yearned for this voice. It brought a smile to his face despite being raised in feminine ire.

“Because I missed you,” he admitted quietly, bending down to kiss her. They were both famished, and haste made them incautious. She nicked his lips, and he bruised hers, but neither of them minded.

“You wretched, wonderful man,” she whispered as she kissed him again, her glorious tongue claiming his mouth for herself alone. “I can take a little push and pull, but please _stay_ this time, Sebas.”

“Is that truly what you want?” he asked anxiously, scanning her face for any sign of uncertainty. He found none.

“I don’t want there to be a shadow of another parting from you.”

Invisible to human observers, they danced through the streets. Grelle’s dress swirled about her, and Sebastian embraced the reaper in the nebulous maelstrom of his demonic form. Thus did the embers of their improbable understanding leap into flame once more.

**Author's Note:**

> Grelle's dress and the concluding scene were inspired by P!nk's official music video for "Walk Me Home." (a song on my Sebagrelle playlist)
> 
> "It's good to see your face": One of Angelica's lines from "Take a Break" (Hamilton)
> 
> "I can take a little push and pull, but please stay": Altered version of a line from Gryffin's song "Tie Me Down" ("'Cause nobody wins these waiting games/You push and you pull, but you should stay/Stay"), another tune on my Sebagrelle playlist
> 
> “I don’t want there to be a shadow of another parting from you.”: From Dickens's novel Great Expectations (Pip's famous line, "I saw no shadow of another parting from her")


End file.
